


ghost dogs

by leoandsnake



Series: un jour je serai de retour [5]
Category: Disco Elysium (Video Game)
Genre: Attempted Stabbing, Cuddling, Exes, Hand Jobs, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, alcohol withdrawals, case stuff, cop stuff, exes flirting, exes tentatively fumbling toward reconciliation, harry wildly overestimating how much authority he has over anyone, kim and jean's first meeting of Adult Partners of Alcoholics, lots of smoking, precinct 41 stuff, slurs (it's cuno what can you do), wound care
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-18 13:22:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29118918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leoandsnake/pseuds/leoandsnake
Summary: INLAND EMPIRE: Jean thinks that his feelings for you are more valid than your feelings for Dora. She’s long gone, while your lives and careers remain inextricably linked. You’ve spent the better part of the last five years inseparable, protecting each other from deadly harm. He felt that his love for you should have been enough to pull you back from the abyss of regret and alcoholism. He also resents Dora for doing what he was unable to do: detach from you emotionally and flee the scene of your slow-motion self-immolation.
Relationships: Harry Du Bois/Jean Vicquemare
Series: un jour je serai de retour [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2095374
Comments: 10
Kudos: 37





	ghost dogs

When the three of them return to the Whirling, Harry gets distracted by something he didn’t notice yesterday; bullet holes in the busted gate that separates the Whirling from the building next door.

He wanders over, wondering how he had missed seeing them before. There are five in total.

PERCEPTION: Two of the bullet holes still have bullets buried inside. One of those holes is impregnated with blood.

VISUAL CALCULUS: From the angle and placement, this is likely the bullet that fatally shot Glen.

INLAND EMPIRE: A bullet that was meant for you.

Harry starts choking up, then.

His eyes burn and sting with tears as he digs in his pocket for his knife, which he uses to start cutting into the weatherbeaten wood, wanting to free the bullets. He has no idea why he’s doing this, he just does it, working with feverish intensity and hunched on the ground like an animal.

Someone walks over to him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Harry can tell it’s Kim before he looks up.

“Detective,” Kim says gently, “we don’t need evidence from this scene. All the mercenaries responsible are dead. The investigation is closed.”

“I have to get the bullets out,” Harry says, wiping his cheeks. “We can’t just have loose bullets all over the place.” He hiccups. “It’ll bring down property values.”

Kim squeezes his shoulder, but says nothing else. Harry returns to digging into the wood. The bloody bullet pops out, clattering onto the tile below. He picks it up and puts it in his pocket, then tries to get to his feet and staggers when his mangled quadriceps fails him.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: A muscle spasm — in a muscle which was recently shredded into ground beef. Ouch.

Both Jean and Kim lunge for him, saving him from toppling over. Harry rights himself and leans on them gratefully, wrapping his right arm around Kim’s shoulders and his left arm around Jean’s waist.

PERCEPTION: Aww, they’re both littler than you. Your little partners.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Don’t get cocky. Both of them could easily kick your ass.

“I’m fine,” Harry says.

“I have some doubts about that,” Jean says.

“Did you tear your stitches?” Kim says.

EMPATHY: Kim is legitimately worried about you, right now. You seem to be emotionally and physically breaking down all at once.

VOLITION: Pull back from the edge. You’re made of tougher shit than this.

Harry tests his left leg and finds that it will hold his weight; the spasm has passed. He lets go of both of them, and inhales, sniffling. “I’m good.”

Jean holds onto him for a moment longer than Kim does, and keeps giving him a doe-eyed look of concern.

“Oi,” someone shouts from behind them. “F-gs. F-g pigs, pig f-gs. Cuno’s got information.”

It is, of course, Cuno; he approaches the gate that Harry destroyed and steps through it, then comes over to Harry and hits him companionably in the chest with a backhand. Harry nods at him, like, _go ahead._

Behind them, Jean says to Kim, “Is this child calling us slurs?” Kim replies, sounding regretful: “Yes.”

“Pig man,” Cuno says to Harry, unfazed. “You asked about people sniffing around? Get this, a cop-type came up to Cuno like a half hour ago, asking wot’s his name and where he lives, all that. Cuno told him to fuck off, of course.”

“A cop-type?” Kim says, breaking his usual policy of not addressing Cuno. “What did he look like?”

“Piggy,” Cuno says. “Pig haircut. Pig clothes. Pig shoes.”

“Is he the other guy who’s staying at the Whirling?” Harry says.

Cuno nods. “Yeah, that one. So, Cuno followed him —”

Kim makes a flat noise of concern.

“Relax,” Cuno says to him. “Cuno’s a master of espionage. Piggy went to a phone, made a call. Started talking to someone — no names. He didn’t say much, he was mostly listening. Sounded like he was talking about you pigs. He said ‘three of them’, and ‘no, not yet.’ Then he made some dumb fuckin’ joke about La Delta. Cuno dunno what the other guy said, but Piggy said, ‘Well, not for you guys in La Delta, I guess,’ and he started laughing his pig head off.”

Jean turns his head and looks toward the bay.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: He’s looking in the direction of La Delta.

“There we go,” Kim murmurs to Jean, and Jean nods.

Harry’s not sure what that means. He gets the impression that it’s a clue to the affiliation of their spy, one that’s going over his head due to his memory loss.

“What happened next?” Harry says.

“Nothing,” Cuno says. “Cuno beat feet. Didn’t want to get spotted.”

“Great work,” Harry says, and it’s hard to tell, but Cuno seems pleased. He turns to his partners and says, “Do we think that’s worth a little money?”

“I wouldn’t have us contract out a child to tail a trained operative, no,” Kim says. “I appreciate the assistance, but I don’t want him getting hurt.”

“Fuck off, f-g,” Cuno says, then seems to reconsider it and says, more mildly, “Bino.”

Harry holds his hand out to Jean, who looks appalled. “I’m not paying a little boy to call us slurs,” he snaps.

“Guys,” Harry says, still holding his hand out, “you know I don’t have any money.”

“Harry, we got paid yesterday,” Jean says. “For fuck’s sake, you can’t be absolutely destitute, you only pay a nominal amount of rent on that shitbox you live in.”

Harry blinks at him. “Wait, I got paid? Where did the money go?”

“Your bank account!”

“My what?”

Jean throws his hands in the air. Harry deliberates a moment, and then turns to Cuno and hands him the last five reál he has on him. Cuno looks delighted.

“Junior detective Ruyter,” Harry says somberly.

“You’re not half-bad, pig,” Cuno says. “Hey, if Cuno becomes a pig for real, does he have to become a f-g, too? It’s not a deal-breaker, he’d just like to know in advance.”

“I can’t be completely sure, due to my amnesia, but I assume you’re referring to homosexuality,” Harry says.

Behind him, he hears Jean say to Kim, incredulously, “He doesn’t remember what _f-g_ means?”

“Yeah, pig men fucking each other, homos,” Cuno says. “Whatever you call it.”

“Well, it sure is a lot of fun, but don’t sweat it if it’s not your bag,” Harry says. “I also feel like I remember banging a ton of chicks, so, you can do both. Don’t limit yourself.”

Kim makes a choking sound; Cuno nods like this is good advice and heads off back through the destroyed gate. Harry turns to Kim and Jean, thinking that went relatively well. Jean is looking at him in disbelief.

“What,” Harry says, “now you’re going to tell me I _didn’t_ bang a ton of chicks?”

“Oh, no, Harry, you banged all the chicks,” Jean says, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “You banged every chick in town!”

“He doesn’t mean that, I assume,” Harry says to Kim. “This is sarcasm?”

“Correct,” Kim says apologetically.

Harry nods. “I don’t want to hear any more, then.”

VOLITION: Wise choice.

“How’s your leg?” Jean says, his tone different.

Harry tests it again, leaning more weight on it. Wind blows in from the bay and whips them, lashing at their jackets. “Better, but I think the dressing needs to be changed.”

“I can do that,” Jean offers.

Kim looks relieved.

EMPATHY: He _is_ relieved. Your leg is a horror, and he spent two entire days tending to it while you bled through reams of bandages and screamed in your sleep.

They head into the Whirling and back upstairs, slowing as they reach the top of the stairs. There’s no sign of Piggy anywhere.

Kim crosses the hall on cat feet and leans toward the door, stopping a millimeter short of pressing his ear up against it. He waits for a long moment, the three of them dead silent, the only sound coming from the little radio on the balcony that chirps out weather reports.

Finally, Kim steps away and returns to them, shrugging.

“I didn’t hear anything,” he says. “Not a sound, but the light is on.”

“So either he’s not there and he left the light on,” Harry says, “or he’s sitting in there in complete silence?”

Kim laughs. “Yeah, I guess those are our two options.”

“What did you mean when you said ‘there we go’ to Jean earlier, about Piggy?”

“What Cuno described to us was essentially confirmation that he’s an agent of the Moralintern,” Kim says, and Jean nods. “Their Revacholian office is in La Delta. I would assume that phone call was him reporting back to his handler.”

“What about Wild Pines?”

“He _could_ have been calling Wild Pines,” Kim says. “They have an office in La Delta, as well.”

RHETORIC: But…?

“But?” Harry says.

Jean clears his throat. “MI agents in the field tend to have contempt for guys who remain in the office and don’t do any field work,” he says. “There’s a rivalry… an us versus them, in-group out-group thing. ‘You guys in La Delta’ would be a kind of shorthand for that. We have the same thing in the RCM.”

ESPRIT DE CORPS: That dynamic is part of why you’re a lieutenant double-yefreitor. You would rather die than give up field work, it’s part of who you are.

“So we’re thinking he’s an MI agent,” Harry says.

“That’s my working assumption, yes,” Kim says. “But I’d still prefer to approach Villedrouin, who we’re certain is one.” He nods toward his room. “I’m going to go have a seat by the window and wait for our friend to give the signal. I’ll come get you two when he does.”

“Thanks, lieutenant,” Jean says, and the two of them part ways with Kim.

Harry goes over to the couch as soon as they get inside, wanting to get off his leg. His stitches haven’t torn, but they are being stretched to the breaking point, and Harry’s skin is stretching with them. He pulls a container of drouamine from his pocket and breaks it open, swallowing two capsules dry.

Jean eyes him as he brings a first aid kit over to the writing desk and opens it up. “Don’t take too many of those.”

“Just two,” Harry says.

Jean takes the gauze, a small pair of scissors, a tube of ointment and a small bottle from the kit before returning to him. “Pants off,” he says.

Harry undoes his belt and wiggles his pants down to his knees. Jean kneels in front of him, then murmurs, “No dirty jokes, please.”

“You’re full of orders today,” Harry says.

“I just know you,” Jean says, with a slight smile. He cuts through the gauze wrapped around Harry’s thigh and peels it apart to reveal the sutured wound.

It’s turning white and is surrounded by a halo of dark pink flesh, which floats in a galaxy of black and purple bruising. Harry stares at it, nauseated. It somehow looks worse now than it did when it first happened, and the bruising is so dark that it brings necrosis to mind.

“It’s healing,” Jean says, seeming to read his mind. “That coloring is normal. You should know that, you’ve been shot before. Not this badly, but you have.”

Harry nods.

SUGGESTION: Ask him if he’s a homosexual.

“Are you a homosexual?”

Jean pours antiseptic in his wound, shocking him and making him cringe. “Sort of. Mostly, I guess. I prefer men, but I’ve dated both. Never anything earth-shattering... I’m married to the job.”

“I wasn’t earth-shattering for you?” Harry says.

Jean’s lips quirk in a smile as he applies ointment to Harry’s leg. “You _are_ the job,” he says.

Harry tries to follow the metaphor. Jean goes too quick for him, sometimes; it’s clear they have a shorthand, and Harry is struggling to hit his marks. “So I ruined our marriage?”

“In a manner of speaking, but I wouldn’t call it ruined. Pushed to the breaking point, maybe.” Jean sits back on his heels. “That has to set for a moment before I replace the bandage.”

“Did you know Kim is a homosexual?” Harry says.

Jean nods.

“Could you tell?” Harry says, awed.

Jean laughs. “Yes, but he also told me the other day.”

“When?”

“When he pulled me aside to discuss your molestation of me.”

“Oh,” Harry says. “What did he say?”

“He just prefaced the conversation with it,” Jean says. “‘Don’t worry, this isn’t a homophobic thing, I’m a fellow tribesman, wink-wink.’”

Harry sits with this for a moment. “Why did it take me so long to figure out Kim was gay, if you could tell right away?”

“Because you’re a very oblivious partial-homosexual.”

“Are you the only man I’ve ever been with?” Harry says.

Jean picks up the bandages and begins to wrap them around his leg with practiced motions, pulling the soft white gauze tight. “That’s what you told me, but you said you were always afraid to come onto men.”

“And how many chicks have I banged?”

“Stop talking about banging chicks, it’s offensive and you sound like a moron. No, I was just teasing you, earlier — I think we talked about this once, and you said it was around fifteen.”

LOGIC: A respectable number. Not pathetically low nor sociopathically high.

“You’re not unpopular with women, especially when you were younger,” Jean says. “You were handsome and charming, and a big flirt. I’m guessing that’s how you got to Dora, because she was very out of your league.”

A fog of gloom descends over Harry. He can never return to his youth.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Wake up, asshole. He just called you ‘handsome and charming.’

ENDURANCE: The implication of all this is that your dick is _massive_. You’re schlangin’.

LOGIC: Your dick is not massive. You’ve seen your dick. It’s regular-sized.

HALF LIGHT: No one fucking asked you, nerd!

“Did you think I was handsome?” he says.

“I told you I did,” Jean says, finishing up the bandage and tucking it into itself. “I started talking to you because I had a little crush, actually. Your desk wasn’t anywhere near mine, but I made excuses to come by. And then, after I’d been doing that for a while… you know.” He shrugs. “It was one of those things. Sometimes you meet someone and you can talk and talk for hours, you’re just comfortable with each other. That was how it was for us. You were the one who asked Pryce to partner us… you didn’t really like your partner at the time. Barry Hutch. He’s dead now, poor bastard.”

“Shot?”

“No, heart attack.” Jean stands, stretching his arms above his head. Harry pats his lap, and he laughs. “I’m not going to sit on your lap.”

“Please?”

“You know, you being a flirt got kind of sinister the drunker you got,” Jean says. “We covered that at the sensitivity training you inflicted on the rest of us. Workplace sexual harassment.”

“What, am I being sinister now?” Harry says, feeling wounded.

EMPATHY: No, Jean likes it, he just needs to put up a show of resisting to protect himself emotionally.

“I think I’m the sinister one,” Jean says. “Considering you’re brain-damaged.”

Harry pats his lap again, and Jean comes over to him, but he doesn’t sit on Harry’s lap. He sits beside him and leans up against him.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Probably a good idea, considering your lap is gunshot.

“Did you not like me being a flirt?” Harry says.

“What, when we were sleeping together?”

“Yeah, did I flirt with other people?”

“You did, but it was really the least of my worries,” Jean says. “I already knew that about you, I didn’t take it personally. It’s not like it ever went anywhere.”

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It was always Jean you wanted to come home to, even at your drunkest; that’s why his address popped into your head when you were trying to figure out where _home_ was. You could be entirely yourself around him. He was a buoy you clung to when you were abandoned in the rough seas of your tattered psyche.

EMPATHY: He does resent your obsession with Dora, though. He doesn’t understand why you can’t just move on — everything he knows about your relationship indicates you were far from soulmates, had little in common, and you were simply infatuated with her and couldn’t let go of that after her own infatuation faded.

INLAND EMPIRE: He doesn’t get it because he’s never been in love. Being with you was the closest he came, because he already loved you as a friend and a war buddy before you got together.

LOGIC: Wait, how does that work? How is being in love with someone different from loving them? How can you love someone you’re romantic with without being _in_ love with them?

CONCEPTUALIZATION: These are complicated matters — above your pay grade. You’re a cop, not a poet-philosopher.

INLAND EMPIRE: The point is that Jean thinks that his feelings for you are more valid than your feelings for Dora. She’s long gone, while your lives and careers remain inextricably linked. You’ve spent the better part of the last five years inseparable, protecting each other from deadly harm. He felt that his love for you should have been enough to pull you back from the abyss of regret and alcoholism. He also resents Dora for doing what he was unable to do: detach from you emotionally and flee the scene of your slow-motion self-immolation.

“I still think you’re handsome, by the way,” Jean murmurs.

“Do you?” Harry says, his heart stirring. “Even though I look like I died?”

“Even though you look like you got hit by a lorry, died, and were dug up several days later, yes.” Jean’s quiet for a moment. “Are you going to try to stay sober?”

“I want to,” Harry says. “I don’t want to crash a car into the sea ever again. I don’t want to do anything I did when I was drunk, it all sounds like a nightmare.”

“You’ve tried to get sober before,” Jean says. He sounds pained.

EMPATHY: You keep giving him false hope that his best friend has returned to the land of the living, then cruelly yanking it from his hands.

“When was the last time I tried?” Harry says.

“Last summer. You got so drunk at a party that you punched through a plate glass window, nicked your ulnar artery, and lost a liter of blood. When you got out of the hospital, you swore off drinking… for about three weeks. Then you went right back to it.”

That explains a scar on his wrist that he’s been wondering about. “That was stupid,” he says.

Jean leans his head on Harry’s shoulder. Harry inhales his familiar smell, then closes his eyes.

“Jean-Jean,” he murmurs.

“Do you remember my full name?” Jean says.

“Jean-Heron?”

“Correct,” Jean says, sounding pleased.

“Do you remember mine?”

“Why would I not r — _I_ don’t have amnesia! It’s Harrier.”

“That’s me,” Harry agrees.

Jean lifts his head from Harry’s shoulder and lets out a soft exhale. Harry makes eye contact with him, and Jean meets his eyes.

SAVOIR FAIRE: If you tried to kiss him right now, he would let you.

Harry leans in, and Jean meets him halfway. The warmth and feel of Jean’s mouth is grounding. Harry can feel his breathing slow. Jean moves closer to him, bringing his legs up onto the couch and kneeling beside Harry as if in prayer, cupping Harry’s ridiculously bearded face in his hands, nuzzling him.

When they break their lips to breathe, Harry says, “Did I have polio as a child?”

“You did,” Jean murmurs. “I had chicken pox around the same age… there was no vaccine yet. We used to joke about that.”

“About what?”

“Us both being maimed by virus.”

“Did I find that funny?” Harry says.

“Yes, you found it very funny. There was a series of films that were popular when you were younger, and…” Harry kisses Jean in the middle of his sentence, interrupting him, and they continue to kiss for a while, pushing their tongues into each other’s mouths.

When Harry draws back again, Jean’s lids are low and his lips are red. He’s somewhat breathless. “There was a film series?” he prompts.

“Yeah, spy movies.” Jean wipes his mouth. “The, ah, one of the main guys, I forget his name, but he had a speech impediment. He sounded like you do when your jaw locks up, except he sounded like that all the time. Anyway, you used to do a very funny impression of him.”

DRAMA: Funny as in, kind of mean.

Harry considers this. “Are you and I assholes, a little bit?”

Jean laughs at this. “Sort of. Sometimes. We’re bad influences on each other, we tend to egg each other on for the sake of a joke.”

LOGIC: As best friends do.

“It’s also just a cop thing,” Jean adds. “There’s a lot of gallows humor, there has to be.”

Harry has an unpleasant thought, then: the mercenaries liked gallows humor, too.

“Are we _evil_?” he says. “Are cops evil?”

“No,” Jean says, sounding incredulous. “God no. We help people, Harry, for fuck’s sake. You took a bullet to that end, why would you think we’re evil?”

“I don’t know,” Harry says. “I feel fundamentally evil all the time.”

“I think you’re trapped in some sort of semi-permanent hangover state,” Jean says.

“Do I not feel evil, usually?”

“You feel guilty pretty often, because you’re a raging alcoholic and you do bad things,” Jean says. “But evil? No.”

This calms Harry. “I believe you,” he says.

“Good.”

“I think being around you makes me feel like I’m evil,” Harry says. “My brain tried to stop me from remembering you, when you showed up in disguise.”

Jean studies him.

“I think it didn’t want me to remember what I did to you,” Harry says. “Or that you gave up on me.”

“I _didn’t_ give up on you,” Jean says, sounding nettled.

“But I want to remember. I want to remember everything.”

VOLITION: Bad idea. Repress that urge, it won’t lead anywhere good.

“You have more pressing concerns than remembering your entire life.” Jean reaches out and pats his uninjured thigh, then strokes his thumb against Harry’s bare skin. “Look, I think we should establish some ground rules.”

“About what?”

Jean motions between the two of them. “Us.”

“Rules besides you telling me not to touch you, and then I touch you anyway, and it’s fine because you secretly wanted me to touch you in the first place?”

Jean scoffs. “By touching me, you mean pawing at me like an animal?”

DRAMA: The way his chest heaves when he says this belies the true emotion behind it.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: The emotion of horny.

“Yes,” Harry says.

“Fine, rules beside that.”

“Okay. What are the rules?”

“You can sleep upstairs with me,” Jean says. “We can… touch. But if you start drinking again, I am going to go apeshit.” His accent turns this into _hapesheet_. “I am going to leave, and go back to Jamrock, and Kim can be the one to scrape your corpse off of the ground, because I will be done with you for good. Do you understand me?”

“Yes,” Harry says. “Can I do speed?”

“You know what, Harry? Fine. Do speed, do cocaine, whatever. I don’t care. Just don’t drink. If you drink, I am _gone_.”

Harry considers this. He was already trying to stay sober, anyway — now there are worthy stakes attached. If he doesn’t drink, he gets to have human companionship, and pieces of his memory slowly returned to him.

“I want to hear that you understand,” Jean says.

“I understand,” Harry says. “I feel like this arrangement kind of favors me?”

“Of course it does,” Jean says. “I have no leverage, I’m pathetic. I’m making a deal with the devil.”

“But the terms of this deal imply you want to have sex with me.”

“Obviously I want to have sex with you,” Jean says, breathless with frustration. “For fuck’s sake. There are just _so_ many good reasons for us not to.”

Harry cups his hand to Jean’s cheek and runs the pad of his thumb over his lower lip, quieting him. “Can we have sex right now?” he says, with avid interest, but they’re interrupted by a knock at the door.

“Detectives,” Kim calls. “It’s time.”

“There’s your answer,” Jean says, and gets to his feet.

Harry follows suit, pulling his pants back up and haphazardly doing his fly. Goddamn it, Kim. First the cockblock with Lilienne, now this. Maybe Kim is part of some high-level RCM conspiracy to prevent him from ever getting laid again.

When Jean moves for the door, Harry grabs for his arm and pulls him back for a moment. Jean looks up at him in surprise, and Harry gropes his dick in his pants before slapping him on the ass and releasing him.

“Are you finished sexually harassing me?” Jean says, looking torn between amusement and annoyance. “Can we get back to this case?”

“Sure can, detective.”

“And don’t slap me on the ass,” Jean mutters as he’s opening the door for Kim.

Harry reaches out to instead grab Jean’s ass, but Jean anticipates this. With one hand, he pulls the door open, and with the other, he reaches behind himself and blindly intercepts Harry, grabbing his wrist and bending it back.

PAIN THRESHOLD: Searing pain! Searing pain! Retreat!

“Hello, gentlemen,” Kim says, glancing up from his notebook at them.

Harry yanks his hand out of Jean’s death grip and shakes the feeling back into it. “Hey.”

It’s very obvious that Kim has noticed their horseplay and is ignoring it.

SUGGESTION: Tell him about you and Jean, to clear the air.

AUTHORITY: As you open your mouth, all the air departs your lungs, and you’re unable to speak. The threat of Kim _and_ Jean’s disapproval being simultaneously aimed at you full blast is too much. It would emasculate you, instantly cleaving your testicles from your body.

Harry shuts his mouth.

“Let’s go,” Kim says, and leads the way downstairs.

/

The smoker on the balcony is no longer on the balcony of the Capeside Apartments once they reach it. He’s slipped away inside of apartment #28.

ENDURANCE: Abandonment. Betrayal. People going indoors from the outdoors. People slapping your hand when you try to grab their ass. People smelling like Tutti Frutti gum. How much can one man take?

Harry has lifted his fist to knock on the smoker’s door when Kim says, “Lieutenant, can I talk to you for a moment?” and beckons him over to the other end of the balcony.

The harbor seems to have resumed operations to some extent, though the gates remain closed — cranes are moving crates around, among other things. This noise plus the screech of seagulls means that when they stand next to the night watchman’s booth, they’re out of earshot of Jean.

Jean doesn’t look perturbed by this. He remains patiently outside the smoker’s door, arms folded.

“Detective,” Kim says, “just to preface this, I don’t know what’s going on between you and Satellite-Officer Vicquemare —”

Harry opens his mouth to respond, but Kim stops him.

“That’s not an invitation to tell me,” Kim says. “I don’t want to know. I don’t want to be any more involved than I already am, unless something were to happen that requires my involvement.”

“What would require your involvement?” Harry says.

“For instance, if one of you were to kill the other,” Kim says, without emotion.

RHETORIC: This is a joke. He doesn’t expect you to kill each other. He’s being hyperbolic so he doesn’t have to name an actual example of something he’d have to step in about — the two of you playing grabass out in the open where Evrart’s spies can see, you being so ruinous to Jean’s emotional wellbeing that he has a nervous breakdown and has to be taken off the case, you making unwanted advances on Jean, et cetera.

“Okay,” Harry says.

“What I was going to say,” Kim says, his smooth voice low, “is… please do your best to not ogle our smoker friend, once we’re inside. This is a police investigation. Not only is it unprofessional behavior, but he’s involved with Villedrouin, in some capacity, and I don’t want to complicate our dynamic with Villedrouin. You are, or recently were, involved with Jean in some capacity, and I don’t need you irritating Jean.”

“I don’t think I could irritate Jean any more than I already have.”

“Regardless. We got lucky with Gaston that our questioning of him went well in spite of your very loud argument in the foyer. I expect that if he overheard you, he probably told Evrart what he heard.” Kim pauses. “That’s not good.”

“Right.”

“We should be limiting any unplanned exposures. If someone overhears the three of us, it should be an intentional manipulation by us, not an accident. There are many unwieldy elements at work here.”

“Yes,” Harry agrees.

Kim searches his face with obvious dismay, like he’s looking for an expression that Harry isn’t giving him. “So you understand?”

“I understand, yes,” Harry says, then pauses. “What do I understand?”

Kim sighs. “Okay.” He holds up one finger. “No ogling of Martin Martinaise, please.” He holds up another finger. “No antagonizing Satellite-Officer Vicquemare into loud public arguments.”

“Well, Jean was just saying earlier that he knows I’m very virile and charismatic and I have a wandering eye, and he doesn’t care.”

Kim makes a choking sound.

EMPATHY: Restraining a laugh at your characterization of yourself as virile.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: That’s fair, you look like you could drop dead at any moment.

“That’s good to know,” Kim says, “but regardless, keep your ogling to an absolute minimum. And this is a blanket rule. You did almost blow our interview with Klaasje before it even happened, with your ‘I want to have fuck’ comment.”

“I was hot off a big-time brain explosion when I said that, Kim,” Harry says. “I’m better now. One could even say I’m at my best.”

“One _could_ ,” Kim says, “but would one?”

“You don’t think I’m at my best?” Harry says, hurt.

Kim’s dark eyes soften. “Detective,” he says, “I think you’re _trying_ your best. I think it would be insulting to you for me to claim you’re currently _at_ your best.”

“I really am trying my best,” Harry says. “Have I actually been ogling Martin?”

“Yes, openly.”

LOGIC: I told you!

“I’ll look away from him,” Harry decides.

“Whatever gets you from point A to point B,” Kim says.

Harry, who has been holding down an alcohol-withdrawal vomit for about forty-eight hours so he didn’t appear weak in front of anyone, loses that fight at this exact and inopportune moment. He goes over to the balcony and pukes over the edge of it. It’s all bile, of course, because he’s barely been eating; it stings his nose and throat.

When he straightens up and turns around, Jean and Kim are looking at him in concern, and Jean has revoked the distance he had previously ceded to the two of them.

“I’m fine,” Harry says.

Kim hands him his handkerchief. “You can keep that,” he adds hurriedly.

Harry wipes his mouth. Jean starts digging in his pocket and takes out a packet of chewing gum, which he offers to Harry. Visions of the alcoholic corpse on the dock and his chewing gum reek clash in Harry’s head with horrific memories of August 2nd in Le Jardin, and he jerks away from Jean and slaps the gum out of his hand.

Jean looks at him in bafflement.

“Sorry,” Harry says. He bends to pick the gum up, then experiences a stabbing pain in his gunshot wound and crashes to his knees on the concrete balcony. Leftover morning dew seeps through the knees of his pants. “Ah, maybe just leave me here, boys,” he says in mild-mannered agony. “Just go on without me.”

“Harry, we _need_ you, you idiot,” Jean says, and he and Kim each grab Harry under one armpit and hoist him to his feet in tandem. “Stop falling down and vomiting and let’s get in there. Otherwise, let’s go somewhere else and regroup, because we’re very visible here on this balcony.”

EMPATHY: He’s worried about you, he’s just angry because he’s so tired of being worried about you.

Kim squeezes Harry on the shoulder, and Harry nods at him.

COMPOSURE: Tighten up your asshole and let’s get in there.

Harry tightens his asshole, pops a piece of gum into his mouth, then goes over to the blue door and knocks.

The smoker opens it, then leans in the doorway, smiling at Harry. “My officer friends,” he greets them. “Please, come in.”

Harry, who is staring at the center of the smoker’s forehead so he doesn’t make eye contact or catch a glimpse of his half-bare chest, nods and follows him inside.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Behind you, Kim is feeling bad for Jean, again, thinking about how grating he would find it to have to work a case alongside a ex-boyfriend who had been shitty to him and has to be ordered to not openly flirt with other people in front of him. Jean, however, is far more used to your behavior than Kim is, and right now he isn’t even thinking about your obvious infatuation with the balcony smoker. He’s thinking about what’s going on back at Precinct 41 and hoping that Major Crimes isn’t falling into anarchy in his absence.

As he walks deeper into the apartment, Harry realizes it smells like Guelphs — Jean’s preferred cigarette. The smoker on the balcony smokes the same cigarettes. He turns and looks at Jean in curiosity, but Jean isn’t paying attention to him. He’s eyeing Charles Villedrouin, who’s sitting on the edge of the bed, cloaked in shadow.

Harry wonders if he was actually in love with Jean.

VOLITION: Again, this question is too complicated for anyone here. At the end of the day, we are all mangled by _your_ alcoholism and delusional personality.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: You loved him, certainly. Your body responds to him with love. You’re relieved at the sight of him. You miss him when he’s gone.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: No word yet on whether loving is the same thing as being in love, chief.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: It’s possible that this does not matter, and has never mattered.

But Harry feels that it must matter. Dora was everything to him, God and the earth and everything in between, but Jean feels like a part of him, like his own flesh and blood. Losing Dora was losing all of the meaning life had ever had; losing Jean was like having his right hand chopped off or his eyes gouged out.

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Or your memory erased.

LOGIC: Did you lose him, though? He’s right here.

The smoker passes Harry on his way out, smiling at him. “I’ll give the four of you some privacy,” he says, and then he’s gone, pulling the door shut behind him.

Charles rises to his feet in what looks like a display of respect toward them, but Harry can’t shake his conviction that Charles outranks them in some way. On top of this, his head is buzzing with questions about the nature of love and reality, and he has no appetite to ask people questions about boring government shit. Harry wants to grab Jean by the lapels and scream at him, “Who were we to each other? What have I done?” and then go outside and vomit some more while Kim pets his hair. That’s what he wants.

Instead he approaches Charles, and the instinct to cop rises up from somewhere inside him, taking him over. “Mr. Villedrouin,” he says with authority.

“Officers,” Charles says. If he’s surprised by Jean’s presence, he doesn’t show it. “My friend tells me you have some follow-up questions for me.”

“Yes,” Harry says. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here at your request.”

“Cut the shit,” Harry says.

Charles doesn’t react visibly, but Kim’s head whips around, and he shoots Harry a warning look. Jean walks over to the bed and sits down at the edge of it; a smile flickers on his lips.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: He likes it when you play Bad Cop. It gets results.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: He also likes it for other reasons, if you catch my drift.

But Harry doesn’t feel like he’s playing anything. He’s truly enraged by bureaucracy, today.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” Charles says.

“Yes, you do,” Harry says. “Tell me, how do they feel over in La Delta about you homosexually fucking an art student and paying his way through school?”

Charles’ face doesn’t change, but his body language shifts. He seems to become an inch or so taller in the span of a second, and his shoulders an inch or so broader. Harry blinks at him.

SAVOIR FAIRE: Unclear how he pulled that off. Neat trick if you can copy it.

VISUAL CALCULUS: Come on — he was slouching before, and he stopped. He didn’t grow an inch in one second.

“Officer,” Charles says, “what are you doing here? What is it that you would like to know? Your investigation into the lynching has concluded, has it not? A suspect was arrested?”

LOGIC: Oh, this is so _annoying_. You know that he knows you’re here to arrest the Claires. He knows you know he knows you’re here to arrest the Claires.

“An officer was brutally assaulted on the harbor gates,” Kim says, emerging from the shadows behind Harry. “Simply for requesting access to the harbor. We would like to know more.”

“I wouldn’t know anything,” Charles says. “I wasn’t here.”

“You’re here now,” Harry says. “And so is your friend next door to us at the Whirling.”

Charles blinks at him. The afternoon light is shining through his glasses from the window behind him, making them glow.

“The RCM doesn’t appreciate being interfered with,” Harry says. “Martinaise is under our jurisdiction. It’s our responsibility. This is our investigation, that was our cop who got his brains smashed in. I don’t see anyone from the Moralintern volunteering to go get their brain smashed in, so back off. You hear me? You go back to La Delta and give them that message from us: _Back off_.”

“Officer,” Charles says, “you seem to be mistaken about my identity and my level of influence. I’m employed with the Institute of Price Stabilitié.”

“Yeah, and I work at fucking Frittte,” Harry says.

Jean turns his head away to disguise a laugh, and Kim’s lips twitch.

“We don’t take kindly to interference in an ongoing investigation,” Harry continues. “You keep interfering, you’re gonna set off a powderkeg. You like things to be _smooth_ , right? You like uniformity, stability? You interfere here, there’s gonna be no stability in Martinaise for a decade to come.”

“What the lieutenant is saying,” Kim says, “is that we would appreciate if you could notify your employer that the RCM has this situation under control. If the MI had any designs on… khm… _stepping in_ … that would be both unwarranted and ill-advised. This is a situation best handled on a local level.”

A look of frustration flashes on Charles’ face, the first real expression he’s had.

EMPATHY: He’s thinking that it would have been far better for the Moralintern if a harbor had never been built here. Better if Martinaise could have remained the middle management resort that Wild Pines had intended. You can’t have people living here, real people, poor people living in this lawless armpit.

“This is the first time I’ve heard officers with the Revachol Citizen’s Militia express any interest in policing Martinaise,” Charles says. He almost sounds impressed.

EMPATHY: Impressed by how reckless the three of you are being. Three _boiaderos_.

“Making up for lost time,” Kim says. His tone is light.

/

It’s raining lightly when they step back outside. As they step off the stoop, their feet sinking into the soft grass, Harry turns his face up to the sky and enjoys the cool mist on his face.

“I can’t tell if that was an incredibly stupid move or not,” Jean says. He’s trying to light a cigarette and having weather-related trouble.

“Whether or not it was, it already happened,” Kim says.

“The threat of bloodshed is the only language those people understand,” Harry says. “It’s the reason Joyce fled.”

“But Joyce had a conscience,” Kim points out. “It doesn’t matter, anyway... if the Moralintern was going to interfere with the Union no matter what, this won’t have an impact. If they were on the fence, they might think twice, now — they might not have realized that we even give a shit, and they don’t want a clash with the RCM. We just need to move quickly, now. We should speak to Titus, then Evrart.”

Jean nods.

“Detective,” Kim says to Harry, “you handle our approach of Titus. He respects you.”

AUTHORITY: Titus does respect you, in the same way that you would respect Villedrouin if he were to take a bullet for you.

INLAND EMPIRE: He wouldn’t do that, though. That’s why he’s him and you’re you.

The few people who were out and about have gone inside since it started raining, although there are a few smokers lingering on balconies, and pedestrians hurrying up and down the street with their black umbrellas bobbing.

Harry pulls open the winter door to the Whirling and steps inside, shaking the rain off his jacket like a dog. Titus is in the Union box, along with Probably-Tibbs, Eugene, Alain, and one other guy who Harry doesn’t recognize. Plus, Lizzy is sitting across the cafeteria at a table. She’s pretending to read a book, but she meets Harry’s eyes when he walks in. Harry tips his hat to her. She looks back down at her book.

Harry swaggers up to the Union box, where Titus is sitting atop one of the tables while the other three guys eat in relative silence at the table behind him.

ENDURANCE: Fuck it, let Lizzy watch. Let her run back to Evrart and tell him. All the better that she does.

“Fellas,” Titus says as they walk up, then to Kim and Harry: “You got an extra fella.”

“This is my usual partner,” Harry says. “Jean.”

Jean looks askance at him.

“Satellite-Officer Vicquemare,” Harry corrects himself.

“You could be your own Hardie Boys,” Titus says in amusement.

“The Harry boys,” Harry says, grinning and turning to Kim, who remains expressionless. He turns then to Jean, who is also expressionless.

“Three coppers,” Titus says, with a slow nod. “You know, there’s been more cops in Martinaise these past two weeks than there’s been my whole life.” He stands up, making use of his height. “When there was a dead Wild Pines merc hanging up out back, I understood why. Now I don’t, so much.”

Behind him, the Hardie boys have stopped eating in favor of listening closely.

“Titus,” Harry says, “can you and I talk in private?”

Titus stares at him, then glances at Kim and Jean. “What, one-on-one?”

“Yeah.”

Kim looks over at Harry uneasily, but lets it go.

“Copper... “ Titus looks out over the cafeteria and exhales in a conflicted way. “I really don’t want to be seen talking to you one-on-one, if you get me.”

“I get that,” Harry says. “But I have to tell you something you need to hear, and we can’t do it here.”

“Where, then?” Titus says, crossing his arms.

“The abandoned pinball factory,” Harry says.

Behind him, Jean murmurs to Kim, “What the fuck is this _abandoned pinball factory_ he keeps bringing up?”

/

Titus is blown away by the fact that there is actually an abandoned pinball workshop inside of the Whirling.

“I have never in my life thought about what was behind this door,” he says, patting the blue door before pulling it shut behind them. “This is wild. You’re something else.”

“No stone unturned,” Harry says, lacing his hands behind his back. “Titus… I have to tell you something, and you’re not going to like it.”

Titus eyes him, then folds his arms across his chest. “Out with it, copper,” he says.

“What do you know about the previous head of the Débardeurs' Union, Tiphaine Holly?”

Titus shrugs. “Nothing. I wouldn’t have even been able to tell you her name… I think the Claires came into power back when I was in high school, couple years before I started working. I remember her, barely.”

REACTION SPEED: That would make Titus only slightly older than Jean. He has a lot of responsibility on his shoulders for a guy in his mid-thirties.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: So does Jean — thanks to you, asshole.

“Well,” Harry says, “she’s dead.”

He and Titus look at each other for a second, in the dim light of the room. Titus looks puzzled.

“Okay?” he says.

“She was assassinated twenty years ago, on the night of the election for Union foreman,” Harry says. “I say ‘assassinated’ because her murder was politically motivated.”

Titus’s jaw sets.

EMPATHY: Yeah, he knows where you’re going with this, and he really doesn’t like it.

“She was killed with a sniper rifle, by the same man who shot Ellis Kortenaer,” Harry continues.

Tituts blows out a breath, shaking his head.

“Who do you think ordered that murder, Titus? If you had to guess?”

“Fuck off,” Titus snaps.

“I’m asking you this for a reason,” Harry says.

“Don’t do this, man. You got your killer. You cracked the case. Please just get out of here, let us heal, okay?”

AUTHORITY: It’s significant that Titus just said ‘please’. He’s acknowledging you as an authority. He’s _begging_ you.

“I can’t,” Harry says apologetically.

Titus looks betrayed. The two of them stand there in silence for a long moment; from behind the blue door, Harry can hear borscht bubbling on the kitchen stove and the more distant sound of voices and clinking dishes.

“Titus,” Harry says, “man-to-man, if we arrest the Claires —”

Titus snorts. “Good luck with that.”

“Well, that’s why I’m coming to you,” Harry says. “Look, you run things here. I get that. I’m not coming to you without respect, it’s the opposite. I’m asking for a ceasefire.”

“A ceasefire so you can arrest my boss,” Titus says, his voice low. “No. I can’t allow that.”

“Titus, the Claires arranged an assassination.”

“And who’s the source on that? Some crazy old communard? You ever think maybe he was lying to disperse the blame?”

“He had a lot of evidence. And who disposed of her body? Who covered up her disappearance? Why are the harbor gates still closed, even though Wild Pines retreated? Why did Measurehead assault a cop just for trying to get past him? The Claires know what they did. And they know there’s a good chance that Dros confessed their involvement to us.”

Titus’s nostrils flare.

“The Moralintern knows, too,” Harry says. “We haven’t charged Dros with Holly’s murder, yet, but they’ve pieced it together anyway. The Coalition may or may not be sharing information with Wild Pines, but either way, we have reason to believe they want to interfere with the Union. They’re waiting for us to arrest the Claires, behead the Union, so they can step in and stabilize Martinaise by busting it.”

Titus is silent, his eyes cast away from Harry, dark and unreadable.

“We’re going into the harbor to talk to Evrart about this, to give him the opportunity to step down and nominate a successor before we arrest him,” Harry says. “I would ask you to promise me that if Evrart orders you to kill us, that you refuse the order and warn us.”

“Copper,” Titus whispers, sounding grief-stricken. “What the fuck are you doing to me, here?”

“I didn’t want to do it, I had no choice.”

Titus appears to gather himself before he says, “You’d get a warning from me. I’d give you a head start, enough time to get the hell out of dodge. We owe you that much.”

DRAMA: He means that.

“You’re aware that if Evrart refuses to cooperate and we get chased out of here,” Harry says, “that we’ll go back to our station and officially file what we know about the Holly murder, and the ICP will descend on Martinaise — followed by Wild Pines?”

“Yeah, I figured,” Titus says with difficulty.

“Is there anyone who you’d want to see step in as foreman? Would _you_ be interested in that role?”

“Nah,” Titus says. “That’s not me, that’s not how I operate. Maybe if it was an executive board, you know? That might be nice…” He seems to ponder it for a moment. “No more unilateral decisions. Could be me, Lizzy, a couple other people.”

SUGGESTION: There’s an implication here that he, on some level, opposes Evrart’s handling of the strike.

“Would you be willing to work with Wild Pines on your labor disputes?” Harry says.

“Oh, fuck them,” Titus says immediately. “No, the harbor is ours. But…” He scratches the back of his neck. “I mean, people gotta work. Even though we’ve been getting paid all this time, this strike’s been rough on the average guy, you know? Work gives people meaning, something to fill their days. I’ve been seeing an uptick around here of, uh, bad shit. Drinking, crime.”

Harry nods. “Alright,” he says, then pauses. “You’re not gonna fuck me, are you? I’m not going to walk out of here and get shot in the back of the head?”

Titus laughs. “I’m not gonna fuck you, coppernado. What you just told me stays between us until I hear otherwise.” He pulls his jacket open to show Harry his gun, then zips it back up and puts his hands in the air. “You have my word on that.”

As a show of trust, Harry turns and opens the blue door, walking out in front of Titus. He waves at Gorący Kubek as he passes him, and Gorący says something in his language and smiles.

He crosses the cafeteria and goes over to Kim and Jean, who both seem relieved to have him return to them unharmed. Titus steps back into the Union booth and takes a silent seat atop the table he was sitting at before, looking pensieve. The Hardie boys look at him with curiosity, but Titus gives them nothing.

“So?” Kim says to Harry in an undertone.

“So,” Harry says, and claps his hands together. “Let’s go talk to Evrart.”

Jean’s eyes widen; he looks at Kim.

“Right now?” Kim says, lifting one eyebrow. “You don’t want to debrief us first?”

“Yup, as soon as possible, yep. Can’t say anything else. Lizzy is right behind us, everyone around us is listening to everything we’re saying.” Harry gives them a manic grin. “Let’s go, boys!”

“Are you on drugs?” Jean says.

“Nope,” Harry says, ushering them out of the Whirling, into the gleaming gray mist that has descended over the bay. “Just scared shitless. Let’s go.”

/

They approach the harbor from the road, with Harry swaggering out in front of Kim and Jean until they pass the Frittte kiosk. Harry then turns to his partners and says, “I’m going to stop in here and get some stuff, because I’m in a lot of pain, leg-wise, and I think I’m about to barf again.”

Kim, who’s holding an umbrella over himself and Jean, motions toward the Frittte with a nod. Jean looks torn between concern, weariness, and general alarm.

“We’ll stay out here,” Kim says. “Keep an eye on things…”

He casts his gaze toward the harbor gates.

LOGIC: Keep someone from walking up behind you in Frittte and blowing your brains out.

“Is there any chance you could tell us what you talked to Titus about?” Jean says.

“Jean,” Harry says, “you seem to have some sort of an anxiety problem.”

Jean splutters.

“We’re good,” Harry assures them. “We just need to hurry up and talk to Evrart, because I have, uh, set some things in motion.” He tries to give them a meaningful look, but it’s warped by The Expression, so he’s not sure what exactly he’s communicating to them.

“You told Titus about…” Kim looks around, then mouths, “The Holly murder?”

“Sure did,” Harry agrees.

“Oka-ay,” Kim says, looking wary. “And do we have his cooperation?”

“In a sense,” Harry says. “We should be okay to go in and out of the harbor, at least.”

“What about the head-measurer?” Jean whispers.

They turn to the gates and look up at Measurehead, who’s staring down at them, his arms folded, standing in contrast against the pale sky.

“Maybe all present members of the ham sandwich race should avoid him, if possible,” Kim murmurs. “Let’s check with Mañana, and if we have no luck there, we can use Cuno’s shack.”

Jean lights a cigarette under the umbrella, the soft glow of it lighting up his face. He looks stressed.

EMPATHY: Next to him, Kim is longing for nicotine. All of Jean’s chainsmoking in his presence has been really testing his one-a-day policy.

Sheerly out of instinct, Harry meets Jean’s eyes and mouths “I got this,” which seems to calm him somewhat.

“Here,” Jean says, taking out his money clip and peeling off one ten-reál note. He hands it to Harry. “And we have to get you to a bank at some point.”

“First point of order tomorrow, if we live through today,” Kim says, and Jean laughs.

The Frittte clerk is, as usual, reading her magazine, and doesn’t look up when Harry walks in, the bell above his head on the door chiming merrily.

“Do you have anything for nausea?” he says to her, coming over and dropping his elbows onto the counter.

“Like medicine?” she says, glancing at him. “No… but we have ginger root, that’s supposed to help with that.”

“Can I have ginger root and drouamine?”

She nods.

The bottles of alcohol tucked away on the shelf above her head glitter and shine, calling to Harry. _Look how beautiful we are. We could give you what you need: courage, power._

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: You could have impenetrable steel skin and survive anything. Alcohol is the key to surviving the apparently unsurvivable, like your car accident. If you were shot at while drunk, the bullets would surely just bounce off of your ragdolled body.

Harry ignores this and pockets the 5 reál she hands him in change, then accepts a blister packet of pills and the raw hunk of ginger. “Thanks,” he says.

“Mhm,” the girl says, returning to her magazine.

Harry swallows two of the pills dry in the doorway, then rejoins Kim and Jean outside. They watch as he examines the ginger root before biting into it.

His mouth explodes in a riot of funky bitterness. Harry makes a choking noise, then, with revulsion, starts to chew. Kim and Jean are staring at him.

He swallows the hunk of half-chewed ginger, gags and says, “She said this helps with nausea.”

“You’re supposed to _cook_ it, Harry,” Jean says.

Harry attempts to scrape the acrid taste off his tongue with his sleeve, then reaches out for Jean’s cigarette, which he hands over. He takes a long drag off of it, filling his mouth and throat with smoke, then hands it back. “Well. Anyway.”

“Shall we?” Kim says. He’s taken his glasses off to clean them, revealing the faded remains of a bruise below his left eye.

“Before we do,” Jean says, finishing his cigarette and dropping it to the ground, where he grinds it under his heel, “just to be clear — we are confronting Evrart with his involvement in the Holly murder?”

Harry nods.

Kim exhales. “I would suggest we regroup somewhere and plan this out first, but it seems we have no time,” he says. “Are we all armed?”

“Always,” Jean says.

Harry pats his left hip, then his right, where he feels the outline of his gun holstered against his hip. “Not sure if it’s actually loaded, but in theory, yes,” he says.

Jean sighs.

“Are you a good shot?” Kim says to Jean.

“Yes,” Jean says.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: You and Jean are both crack shots. You used to have a lot of fun going to the gun range in Precinct 41's basement and having shooting competitions with guys like McCoy and Tillbrook, who have far higher body counts than either of you, and embarrassing them with your marksmanship. It was a way for the two of you to tacitly debunk the accusation that you just weren’t _man_ enough to blow people away — a way to prove that not blowing people away was a conscious choice you made.

“Good to hear,” Kim says, running his thumb along the butt of his own gun where it rests in his holster before zipping his jacket back up. “I got off a lucky shot at the tribunal, I don’t think I’ll get that lucky twice in two weeks. Let’s go.”

They approach Mañana, walking up the silent street through the haze of rain, staring at him. He stares at them back, expressionless. Harry feels like he’s in a _boiadero_ film.

“Mañana,” he calls up to him once they reach the staircase.

“Yes,” Mañana calls back.

“Permission to come aboard?”

Mañana laughs and drops something down to him. A tiny rectangle. It falls into the wet street, and Kim goes over to pick it up, saving Harry from having to bend his bad leg.

“It’s a dockworker’s ID card,” Kim says, scanning it. “I don’t recognize the name on it, but I assume it would get us into the harbor secretariat?”

“Thank you,” Harry calls up to Mañana, who nods. “Okay, so I guess we’re in, then.”

They head up the wet, slippery stairs in single-file, with Jean bringing up the rear and Harry on point. Mañana jokingly tips his beret at them as they walk by, and when they get to the door, Harry shoots a look at Measurehead before sliding the ID into the card reader. Measurehead is staring them down, but hasn’t moved from his usual position on the gates.

“He must be freezing his ass off,” Jean whispers as they crowd into the secretariat.

“He has racism to keep him warm,” Kim says.

Harry wipes his sweaty hands on his pants. “Anyone else nervous?”

“Of course we’re nervous,” Jean says. “We’re sane. I’m actually relieved to hear that _you’re_ nervous.”

“We’ve done all the due diligence we can,” Kim says. “I trust you, detective.”

Harry nods at him, and Kim nods back.

They maintain their single-file line as Harry leads them on a voyage across damp concrete and metal toward Evrart’s usual container. He slips once, and his ravaged quadricep quakes in response, but he rights himself and stays the course. He’s a man on a mission.

Cranes move lazily above them as they walk. Harry peers over the guardrail on his right and sees that they appear to be clearing containers from the other side of the harbor gates, so that the lorries can get through more easily. Harry points at this and says, “Look.”

“I noticed,” Kim says. “It seems like Evrart anticipates re-opening the harbor soon.”

“What do you think that means?”

“It could mean anything.”

Harry falls quiet again. Seagulls screech.

Evrart’s container is open, as usual, with red livery splashing out of it and beckoning them. Easy Leo isn’t hanging out in his usual spot; Harry misses the sight of him.

He keeps walking, into the container and up toward Evrart’s office. Halogen lights buzz around them. Harry notices, now, the trembling that Jean mentioned — his hands are shaking like he’s an old man. He stuffs them in his pockets before climbing the stairs.

“Harry,” Evrart says, oily and cheery. He reclines back in his chair, folding his arms behind his head. “Mr. Kitsuragi, Mr. Vicquemare. To what do I owe the pleasure?”

Kim and Jean step into position on each side of Harry, flanking him, but say nothing. This is Harry’s rodeo, he surmises.

It’s hard to tell, what with Evrart’s lazy eye and the thickness of his glasses, but Harry thinks he sees him glancing between him and Jean in curiosity. Okay, so Gaston probably did hear them yelling and report back about it. Whatever. Harry gets the feeling that loud, public lovers’ quarrels are exactly not new territory for him.

HALF LIGHT: They aren’t, no. 

“We’d like to ask you some questions,” Harry says.

Evrart nods. “Ask away. Would you like to sit?”

VOLITION: You don’t want to sit.

Harry shakes his head. “Were you aware of the presence of Iosef Lilianovich Dros on the Sea Fortress in the Bay of Revachol?”

“Hmm,” Evrart says. “That’s the sniper you arrested? I don’t believe I had ever met anyone by that name. It certainly didn’t sound familiar when I read it in the paper.”

“He may not have ever told you his name,” Harry says. “But he was a communist holdover, and he lived there for more than forty years. Right here in Martinaise, right under your nose.”

Evrart’s shrewd eyes twinkle behind his glasses. Harry holds the gaze of the non-lazy one.

“He claims you and your brother Edgar approached him twenty years ago,” Harry says, his voice low and slow. “He claims you asked him to commit an assassination.”

“Does he?” Evrart says.

“Yes. He’s very coherent and insistent on that point.”

“An assassination… That’s a serious accusation. An assassination of who?”

“Tiphaine Holly,” Harry says. “The previous forewoman of the Débardeurs' Union.”

“That’s very amusing, Harry,” Evrart says. “We discussed Holly. She’s not dead.”

“I’m not sure how you would know that, Mr. Claire,” Kim says. “When we discussed Holly, you suggested a far-fetched scenario about her missing the election because she had a casserole in the oven… then never being heard from again.”

Evrart laughs. “That was a joke. I have no idea _why_ she missed the election, or why she skipped town.”

“We know why,” Harry says. “She was dead. Dros shot her dead with his sniper rifle, on your orders.”

“And her daughter didn’t call in to say she wouldn’t make it in time,” Kim says. “Because our investigation has revealed that Tiphaine Holly never _had_ a daughter.”

Evrart doesn’t respond to this. A silence stretches out between the four of them, interrupted only by a clock ticking loudly on the wall to their right. Harry becomes aware of a wet leak in his bandages — he’s started bleeding, he assumes, from a stitch he tore while climbing all these harbor stairs.

“I’ll do anything I can to help, Harry,” Evrart says, his voice unctuous. “Unfortunately, I don’t know what you’re talking about. If Dros did kill a woman twenty years ago, my brother and I had no knowledge of it. Your only evidence is the ravings of a hermit? I read _L'autre Monde_ , gentlemen… I read about your phasmid. Mr. Dros sounds addled, delusional, and it’s his word against ours.”

“Even so,” Kim says, “we will have to take you both into custody until your court hearing, at which point you’ll be able to explain your side of things.”

A smile cracks Evrart’s massive face. “Mr. Kitsuragi…”

“Lieutenant Kitsuragi,” Kim says dispassionately.

“... it simply can’t be done,” Evrart says. “I have far too much to do here. I can’t take forty days from the Union to sit in a jail cell, if you could even find one to fit me. And my brother is currently away on business.”

“We’ll need his location,” Jean says.

“Gentlemen,” Evrart begins, and Jean interrupts him with a stubborn bark of: “ _Officers_.”

Evrart smiles indulgently at him. “You’ve spent some time in Martinaise,” he says. “As I’m sure you’ve realized, it’s unfortunate, but the town would fall apart without a steady hand to guide the Union.”

“We agree,” Harry says. “That’s why we want you to step down voluntarily, and nominate a successor. It can be temporary, if you think you’ll beat this case. But you need to do it.”

“Now Harry,” Evrart says, “why would I do that when we could simply let this go, and enjoy a peaceful partnership between Martinaise and the RCM?”

AUTHORITY: This is a genuine question, and you need to answer it honestly. Go in for the kill. Let the mask of humanity fall for a second.

“Because,” Harry growls, leaning over his desk, “Evrart, you moron, we’re offering you your only way out. The Coalition’s made up their mind about you and your whole operation, okay? They’re siding with Wild Pines. They want you out. If you resist arrest, kick us out, kill us, the ICP’s just going to send bigger guys, with bigger guns, and they’re going to squeeze you like a tick ‘til your head pops off!”

“What imagery,” Evrart says. “Are you a cop or a poet?”

“I’m a fucking cop!”

CONCEPTUALIZATION: Cops can be poets.

Kim lays a hand on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry straightens up. All the blood has rushed to his head, and he’s having a hard time staying on his feet, but on his feet he remains.

“The lieutenant is correct,” Kim says, dropping his hand. “If you don’t submit to the RCM, the Moralintern will simply send their own agents. I’m sure you’ve already noticed the one who’s staying at the Whirling.”

Evrart inclines his head in a tiny nod.

“If you were to appoint a loyal successor,” Kim says, “like Mr. Hardie, or Ms. Beaufort, or both… and then step down… they could hold your seat for you until court proceedings conclude, or until your sentence has been served. The Union could remain intact. But if the Moralintern has its way…”

“The Union will be destroyed,” Jean says. “They will install a puppet leader. They will rot it from the inside out. All your gains will be lost, and the Coalition will, in effect, take Martinaise. They will allow Wild Pines to run it as a corporative state, and you will rot waiting for trial. Your Wayfarer rights will have been suspended, so that could take up to five years in the Coalition court system.” His voice is cold.

Another silence falls. Harry stares at Evrart, waiting.

“Well,” Evrart says, “I assume you’ve talked to Titus about this. Lizzy observed you two talking, Harry, she let me know.”

Harry nods. “Titus supports the idea of him running the Union with Lizzy while you’re gone,” he says.

EMPATHY: This betrayal comes as a blow to Evrart, though he doesn’t show it. Still, at the same time, he’s proud. He knows he’s only mortal, and for twenty years he and Edgar have been trying to build something that would last. Titus _should_ be more loyal to the Union itself than he is to Evrart, it’s only right.

“I don’t see any reason for the Union to be further delayed in our goals just because I have a court date,” Evrart says. “I’ll talk to them both about getting something down on paper… naming them as interim forepersons.” He smiles. “‘Foreperson’, that sounds stupid. I’d rather be politically incorrect.”

“So —” Jean looks around. “Are we making an arrest?”

“Why don’t we give it a few days,” Evrart says, still smiling, still unctuous. “I obviously have things I need to get in order. You boys have some business to attend to, don’t you? You’ll have to take Jean-Luc in for questioning about that business at the gates, I’m guessing.”

LOGIC: His message is loud and clear — if he had to pick, he would rather have the RCM interfering with Union matters than the Coalition and Wild Pines. He thinks he can work with you, and he knows he can’t work with them. He’s willing to play along. He thinks that you have no case against him or Edgar, and at most, he’ll be gone for about a month while Titus and Lizzy run things in his absence. He’s even giving you Measurehead as a parting gift.

Kim and Harry look at each other, and Kim nods.

“Fine,” Harry says, turning to him. “You have two days, and then we’ll make an arrest. In the meantime, why don’t you go ahead and track down Edgar for us.”

Based on the files the ICP sent over, the task force’s working theory is that Edgar is hiding out with the Claires’ accountant in La Delta — they just don’t have the manpower to send someone to La Delta to go arrest him. Ideally, he would turn himself in.

“Of course,” Evrart says, winking. “He’d be happy to come in. Anything to clear up this misunderstanding. Is that all? I have a lot of paperwork to do.”

“I — yes,” Harry says, stunned by the fact that his reckless gambit actually worked.

“I’ll see you in two days, then, officers,” Evrart says.

No one moves, for a moment. Harry looks at Jean, who looks at Kim. Then, with a clearing of his throat, Kim turns and starts walking away down the metal stairs.

Harry and Jean follow after him. Harry’s still dazed, and he’d really like to take a look under his bandage to figure out what exactly is _seeping_ , and also to smoke a cigarette. He staggers a little as he’s leaving the container, and from behind him, Jean’s hand shoots out and touches his lower back.

“I’m okay,” Harry assures him.

“Okay,” Jean says.

They step out into the gray mist that’s settled over the red-drenched harbor like radio static, blinking as it clings to their eyelashes. Harry takes a few steps away from Evrart’s makeshift entryway, his shoes clanking on the metal of the container they’re standing on, then turns to Kim and Jean. “What do we do?” he says.

“Back to the Whirling,” Kim says, his face drawn. “And we wait.”

“We’ll be sitting ducks there,” Jean says.

“I know. But —”

_Clank clank clank._

REACTION SPEED: Footsteps behind you… someone is running up behind you.

HAND-EYE COORDINATION: Turn around.

Harry wheels around, and as he does, he sees Jean pulling his pistol free of its holster in his peripheral vision. Time slows down. As he turns fully, his adrenaline-soaked brain captures a snapshot of what is unfolding: Shanky running toward him out of a fog bank, his eyes hard, a shank in his hand.

REACTION SPEED: Ohh, _‘Shanky’_...

Harry only has time to process that 1) someone is running toward him full-speed holding a knife 2) that person is Shanky 3) Shanky is likely called Shanky because he shanks people. There’s not enough time for him to react otherwise, let alone to leap out of the way. His body is too old, too top-heavy, too beset by alcohol withdrawals.

_BLAM! BLAM!_

Harry cringes as a gun fires from point-blank proximity to him. Shanky stops mid-run like his strings have been cut and collapses atop the container, screaming in pain. He rolls over onto his back, and Harry sees Union-red blood spilling through his jeans, from his left thigh and right calf.

The hand holding the shank falls open-palmed, and Kim streaks forward, striking Shanky in the wrist and disarming him.

Harry turns to Jean, who’s standing a few feet to his right with a smoking pistol in his hand, his eyes blazing. Then he turns back to Kim, who’s working to handcuff Shanky while he moans in pain. Both of them reacted so much faster than he did — these DTs must really be doing a number on him.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: They sure are! Also, you’ve barely slept or eaten for almost two weeks, and you got shot.

“Another day, another attempted stabbing,” Harry says to Jean over the tinnitus he's suddenly experiencing.

Jean cups his hand behind his ear. “I can’t hear you,” he yells at him.

Harry cups his hands to his mouth. “I SAID, ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER ATTEMPTED STABBING!”

Jean laughs. “Yes,” he shouts.

“Do you have him?” Harry says to Kim, who’s kneeling astride a restrained Shanky.

Kim nods. “He’s not going anywhere,” he says with a grin.

“Good, I’ll be right back,” Harry says, and heads back into Evrart’s container, high off adrenaline and rage. “ _Evrart_!”

“Yes Harry,” Evrart calls down to him, as Harry storms through his little waiting area and up the stairs to his office. He follows this up with what sounds like a question, but Harry can’t hear him over the ringing in his ears.

“What?” Harry bellows.

“Did I just hear gunshots?” Evrart repeats. He appears unfazed by the prospect.

Harry stops in front of his desk and leans forward, pointing a finger in Evrart’s face. “The second I walked out of here, your boy Shanky tried to shanky me! What the fuck is going on?”

Evrart looks genuinely taken aback. “Harry,” he says, chuckling. “If I wanted to kill you, do you really think I’d send _Shanky_?”

“I don’t know!”

“No, no, God no. No, you see, I had to _fire_ Shanky the other day, after he deserted his men during the tribunal. I can’t have Union members letting their side down like that. So I would imagine he saw the three of you enter the harbor, and was trying to get back in my good graces by stabbing you, since he’s obviously unaware of our little arrangement. Is he dead?”

“No, but my partner shot his legs clean off,” Harry says.

“Oh, good,” Evrart says. “We don’t need any more fatal shootings around here, not inside the harbor, at least. Are you going to arrest him?”

“For the attempted stabbing of an officer of the RCM? Yes!”

Evrart sucks his teeth. “Can you drag him out into the street before you do? And say that’s where you shot him, in your paperwork? I just don’t like having people shot and arrested in the workplace, it’s a liability thing. I don’t want Titus and Lizzy to inherit another mess, not when they’ll have so much else on their plates.”

Harry stares at him, wondering if he can trust a word Evrart is saying.

DRAMA: You can, actually.

INLAND EMPIRE: It makes sense. He _wouldn’t_ send Shanky to kill you, especially not in such a half-assed way. Evrart doesn’t half-ass things.

Harry points his finger in Evrart’s face again. Evrart looks at it mildly.

“Don’t try to kill me,” Harry orders him. “But if you _do_ try to kill me, you only come after _me_ , got it? You don’t touch Kim and Jean.”

“Very noble of you, Mr. Du Bois,” Evrart says. “But of course, I don’t want to kill any of you! You’re all my friends.”

“Uh-huh,” Harry says, then turns from him and stomps away, wincing in pain as he does so.

Outside, Shanky lies handcuffed at Kim’s feet, bleeding and whimpering pathetically while Kim leans in toward Jean so he can talk into his ear. Jean is squinting like his hearing is still impaired.

“Hi,” Harry says to them both. “Evrart says he didn’t send Shanky. He said he _fired_ Shanky, actually, for, uh, dereliction of duty, or whatever, ‘cos he ran away during the tribunal. So Shanky was trying to stab me to get back in his good books, which didn’t work, because Evrart wants to play ball with us.”

Kim nods.

“I didn’t _run away_ ,” Shanky cries. “I went to —”

“Shut up,” Jean says conversationally, and kicks him in the ribs.

Kim looks a little startled.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Culture shock. Between Precincts 41 and 57, there’s a difference of opinion on whether or not it’s normal behavior to kick a handcuffed suspect in the ribs after shooting him. At the 41st, that’s pretty normal stuff. Nothing _you_ would bat an eye at, certainly.

Wanting to adhere to protocol, Harry doesn’t bat an eye.

Jean follows this up by leaning back in toward Kim, who repeats what Harry just said into Jean’s ear. Jean nods and gives him a thumbs up.

“Would you like to do the honors of making the actual arrest, lieutenant?” Kim says to Harry. “Since it was you he tried to stab?”

“I have a better idea,” Harry says. “Titus has been looking for you, hasn’t he, Shanky? He’s pissed you broke rank, isn’t he? Why don’t we turn you over to him?”

Kim grins. “It’s your call,” he says.

EMPATHY: He loves this idea. Kim has a strong distaste for cowards, saboteurs, and literal back-stabbers.

Jean and Kim tear some strips off of Shanky’s clothes so they can tourniquet his gunshot legs right there on top of the container, all while Shanky protests loudly, and then carry him down from the harbor — Jean carries his legs while Kim carries him by the armpits. Harry, who’s close to passing out at this point, takes a supervisory role in all of this. He notices that Measurehead is no longer on the gates; his girlfriends are gone, too.

When they reach the street, Harry directs Kim and Jean to dump Shanky in the middle of it, then shouts, “TITUS! TITUS HARDIE!”

It takes a minute or two, but then Titus forces his way out of the summer door of the Whirling and looks in Harry’s direction. He starts walking up the road toward them through the light fog, adjusting his cap.

PERCEPTION: They’re being subtle about it, but the people of Martinaise are watching all this go down. They’re poking their heads out from front doors and windows, hanging off balconies, gawking at the scene in the streets below.

“What you got there, copper?” Titus shouts to them. Harry’s ears are still buzzing, but his sharp hearing picks up Titus’s bassy voice. 

“I have a rat named Shanky,” Harry shouts back.

A smile breaks across Titus’s face, and he stops a few feet short of them. “Well well,” he says. “And you _shot_ him?”

“Jean shot him,” Harry says, indicating Jean. “After he charged at me with a knife.”

“Shanky!” Titus says, and he kicks Shanky, too. “What do you have to say for yourself?”

“Please, Titus,” Shanky begs.

“Don’t ‘please’ me, fucker,” Titus says, his face hard. “You have a lot to answer for.”

“He’s all yours,” Harry says to Titus. “The RCM is staying out of this one. This is Union business, we get it.”

“Even though he tried to _stab_ you?” Titus says. He smiles, looking downright honored. “Thanks, man. Much appreciated. We’ll take care of him, trust me.”

Harry reaches out to shake Titus’s hand. “You might want to go talk to Evrart,” he says.

Titus nods. “Me and Lizzy?”

“Yeah.”

“We gonna get this harbor back open, put my guys back to work?”

Harry nods, and Titus’s eyes twinkle.

/

Jean insists they radio into the station before they do anything else, even though all three of them are nervous about hanging around in the open like that after what they just did. Harry and Kim flank Jean on either side while he picks up the radio, with Harry facing south toward Jamrock and Kim facing north toward the bay, their hands on their holsters.

(Harry’s gun is, in fact, loaded. He made sure of this on his way out of the harbor.)

“Hi Jules,” Jean says, when Jules picks up. “Can you connect me to Captain Pryce?”

“Certainly, officer,” Jules says. “One moment.”

The three of them wait. Rain is pattering on Kim’s MC, streaming down the windows. Harry keeps his head on a swivel, his peripheral vision trained on the traffic jam.

“Hello?” Pryce’s gruff voice clips through the static.

“Captain?” Jean says. “It’s Officer Vicquemare, calling in from Martinaise.”

“Ah, Vicquemare… what can you tell me?”

“Well,” Jean says, and he jumps into the story, laying everything out with occasional input from Kim and Harry.

When they’ve finished, Pryce is quiet. “Hmm,” he says.

“Hmm, sir?” Jean replies.

“Yeah… this doesn’t feel wrapped up to me.”

“I wouldn’t call it wrapped up, sir,” Kim calls over Jean’s shoulder, without taking his eyes off of the road leading toward the waterlock. “We haven’t actually made any arrests, but I’m confident that we will shortly.”

“Ah, yeah, and it sounds like you gave up an easy clearance,” Pryce says. The crackle of his voice is hard to hear under the crack of raindrops off of the pavement and the lingering ringing in Harry’s ears; he really has to concentrate to pick it up. “This guy who tried to stab DB? Come on, boys.”

“The lieutenant double-yefreitor felt it was worth it in the long run to allow the Union to handle that internally,” Kim says.

AUTHORITY: Subtly reminding him of your rank.

“Don’t worry, Captain,” Jean says, “I’m sure someone else will try to stab Harry before too long.”

“A-ha-ha-ha,” Harry says, giving him the finger. Jean gives it back.

Pryce is quiet for another long moment. They hear static, and the sound of him smoking. “Boys,” he says, “I’m going to level with you, because you’re all intelligent, and I’m sure you’ve figured this out already. But the MI has been leaning on us to produce a certain, more favorable outcome, here.”

Jean glances at Harry, then at Kim. They look back at him helplessly.

“Sir?” Jean says into the radio in his hand, like he's opting to play dumb.

“I get it, though, the facts on the ground are usually pretty different from what the suits at the highest levels believe them to be,” Pryce says. “I’m flexible. I’m just thinking, you know… the agreement we had with the MI to up their yearly donation to the RCM might not be in such great shape, right now. That’s fine. But is there another angle, here? Can we encourage the Union to become donors to the RCM, in exchange for our, ah… increased attention to the area?”

All three of them stand there in stunned silence.

LOGIC: Is he asking you to take money from the Union in exchange for the backing of the RCM?

“You want us to volunteer ourselves as _mercenaries_?” Harry says.

“DB,” Pryce says crossly, “you’re 45,000 reál in the hole to the RCM, and that’s just from the last two weeks alone. We don’t really need your input on budgetary matters.”

“Got it,” Harry says, and shuts the fuck up.

“Sir,” Jean says, “with all due respect, all we can do is police work. Anything else is beyond my pay grade.”

“Well, Vicquemare, I would say what you all did today goes beyond police work,” Pryce says. “I would say you were putting your thumb on the scale a little bit, here.”

Jean turns to Harry and mouths _help me_.

“Sir,” Harry says, trying to inject authority into his voice, “everything that happened today was my idea, for the record, and these two, uh, did it under my orders.”

AUTHORITY: No dice. There’s no way you’re going to out-authority your captain when you’re a raging amnesiac drunk who just fucked up the racket he was trying to run.

“That’s noble of you, DB, but I know damn well that neither of these guys are hanging on your orders,” Pryce says, laughing. “By the way, I was going to tell you this the other day, but I thought I’d wait until you seemed a little more lucid — you need a haircut and a shave, ASAP.”

“Do I seem more lucid, these past few days?” Harry says in an undertone to Kim and Jean.

“I would have no frame of reference for your relative lucidity, detective,” Kim murmurs, continuing to scan the road, not making eye contact with him.

“It’s not like you were very lucid _before_ all this,” Jean whispers. “But maybe, I guess.”

ENDURANCE: Hell yeah, we’ll take a ‘maybe, I guess.’

“What are you whispering about?” Pryce barks at them.

“My brain damage, sir,” Harry calls.

Pryce laughs. “Alright, let me go. I have other shit to attend to. I’ll see what I can do about the MI situation… maybe I can convince them this is better in the long run, or something. Call in again when you’ve made an actual arrest. Keep up the good work.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Jean says to him. Pryce hangs up, and Jean sighs. “That didn’t go as badly as it could have.”

“I think it went quite well, considering the circumstances,” Kim says.

“Do you regret your transfer yet?” Jean says to him.

Kim smiles. “Not yet. Give me a few more weeks.”

EMPATHY: He genuinely doesn’t. The RCM’s institutional rot of corruption and compromise is nothing new to him. He operates within that confine, not outside of it.

Jules picks back up, saying, “Officer?”

“Hi, Jules, is Trant around?” Jean says.

“No, he just stepped out for lunch.”

“Fuck. Is Jude?”

“Officer Minot went with him. Along with the rest of the task force, actually.”

“Fuck!” Jean exclaims. “Is that what they do all day when I’m not there? Go to lunch?”

“I wouldn’t know, sir,” Jules says.

“Alright. Sorry. Thanks. Bye.”

“10-4,” Jules says. “Over.” He hangs up.

Jean sets the mic back into the radio with a click. As he does, Kim says, “Do you hear that?”

It takes Harry a moment, but then he does: it’s the sound of groaning metal, coming from the harbor. All three of them look in that direction.

The massive gates are creaking open, slowly dragging themselves apart, letting daylight pour into the harbor.

Drivers in the jam who were huddled in the cabs of their lorries to get away from the rain start poking their heads out of their windows, cheering, honking. Tommy Le Homme gets out of his lorry and starts dancing in the rain, his arms flung into the air.

“Thank fucking God!” someone screams. This is met with more enthusiastic honking.

Harry turns back to Kim and Jean, who are both smiling.

“That’s one win for us, at the very least,” Kim says.

/

The three of them are a little less anxious when they return to the Whirling, and the mood of Martinaise as a whole is on an upswing. Downstairs, Union guys are drinking at the bar, the Union box is packed, and the cafeteria is full of people gossiping about what the fuck is going on. They avoid all this chaos and slip away upstairs, with Kim heading fleet-footed for his room.

EMPATHY: His hands and arms are covered in Shanky’s blood from that sloppy tourniquet job they did in the rain, and he wants to shower _so_ badly.

Harry and Jean retire to their own room, at which point Harry informs Jean, “I’m seeping.”

Jean turns to him, wide-eyed. “What does _that_ mean?”

“I think I tore a stitch.”

“Oh, okay.” Jean heads into the bathroom, calling “Sit,” over his shoulder. A moment later, Harry hears the sink start running.

Harry pulls his pants down to his knees again and takes a seat on the yellow couch. He can hear rain pattering on the back side of the Whirling, striking the little window in their bathroom. Inside the room, though, it’s warm and cozy. All the painkillers Harry has been taking are making him feel hazy and content.

When Jean returns from washing his hands, he gives up on his usual search through the first aid kit and just comes over with the entire box, setting it on the couch beside Harry. He uses a pair of small scissors to cut through the bandage, which is bloodied, and peels it back.

They both stare at his leg. Sure enough, one stitch has popped, tearing its way through Harry’s skin and exposing his gunshot wound to the air. Jean mops the blood away with a piece of gauze, then pours antiseptic into the wound.

This stings. “Ouch,” Harry says.

“Sorry,” Jean says, sounding fretful and apologetic. “The wound isn’t gaping, I think I can just clean this tear out and rebandage your leg. I don’t want to try to suture over the lieutenant’s stitches… he’s better at this than I am.”

Some old instinct makes Harry reach out and stroke Jean’s hair back from his face, running his fingers through it at his temple. Jean, who’s bent over his leg, looks up at him from under his brows and lets out a soft laugh.

“Hi Harry,” he murmurs, dabbing more antiseptic into his wound.

“Hi Jean,” Harry replies.

“Are you remembering something?”

“Maybe. Why?”

Jean shakes his head. “You just used to do that before you kissed me,” he says.

“Oh,” Harry says. “Well, I’d like to kiss you, if you’re offering.”

“Give me a moment,” Jean says, dabbing harder, making Harry hiss with pain. “I’m trying to save you from getting gangrene.”

“Kim said I had a bacterial infection.”

“I know you did, that’s why I keep sanitizing your wound.”

PERCEPTION: The bottle he’s holding says mercurochrome, which is exactly what Kim said he used on you.

“Oh,” Harry says.

Jean spreads an ointment on Harry’s wound that numbs it, pulls on a pair of latex gloves, then takes out a scalpel from the first aid kit.

PAIN THRESHOLD: Whoa, whoa, whoa, we don’t let spurned lovers pull scalpels on us.

Harry jerks away from him. “What are you doing?”

“I’m just going to cut out the stitch that came apart, and debride the wound,” Jean says.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: He’s going to cut a layer of dead skin away, so your body can focus on healing the living flesh around it.

Harry closes his eyes. “Okay,” he says, “just please do it fast, and don’t hurt me too much.”

“I won’t hurt you,” Jean says, sounding nettled. “You know, I distinctly remember saying in that meeting we had, ‘I’m not going to Martinaise just to nurse Harry,’ yet here I am…”

He begins cutting at the stitch; the wound may be temporarily pain-free, but Harry can still feel the tug of the scalpel. There’s no pain when Jean runs the scalpel along the inside of his wound, either, but even so, he can still _hear_ the infernal scraping noise that results. 

SAVOIR FAIRE: Take it like a man. Sit there in manly silence.

“I’m done,” Jean says, patting Harry on his right thigh. “You can stop shaking and whimpering and praying under your breath.”

Harry’s eyes spring open. “I was doing that?”

SAVOIR FAIRE: No, he’s lying. You sat there in manly silence.

Jean nods.

ENDURANCE: Liar.

“I’m very sleepy,” Harry admits to him. He feels, all of a sudden, like he can’t keep his eyes open.

“Take a nap,” Jean says. His voice is soft. “I’ll sit with you.”

“Will you?”

“Yeah.”

Harry lies down across the yellow couch, pulling his cloak over himself like a blanket. Jean takes a seat by his head, and reaches down to pet his hair. Harry closes his eyes, swallowing the world in oblivion. Only Jean’s hand and the couch underneath him exist.

/

When Harry awakens, only the couch remains. He sits up disoriented, his eyes burning from the halogens overhead, and squints in the direction of the doorway. Jean is standing in it, trying to yank their room key free of the doorknob, cursing quietly. After a moment, he’s successful, then shuts and locks the door behind him.

“What time’s it?” Harry slurs at him.

“Nine,” Jean whispers. “You’ve been asleep for five hours.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“I went downstairs to get dinner with the lieutenant.” Jean pass-fakes a packaged sandwich, then throws it for real; Harry catches it. “I got this for you.”

Something about Jean’s relaxed demeanor and his struggle with the doorknob are very familiar to Harry.

PERCEPTION: Of course they are. He’s been drinking.

“Did you drink?” Harry says.

“Yes,” Jean says. He’s not wearing his uniform’s jacket, just the white dress shirt that goes underneath, and his cheeks are flushed. Something about this combination is very appealing. “The lieutenant and I had dinner and drinks, and we talked.”

“Without me?” Harry says, hurt.

“Of course without you!” Jean exclaims. “You’re a raging alcoholic, and we aren’t!”

“I still feel left out.”

“Harry, come on.”

“Did you talk about me?”

“No, actually, we didn’t,” Jean says.

DRAMA: He’s lying, they totally talked about you, how could they avoid talking about you? It was brief, though.

“What did you talk about?”

Jean shrugs. “Life, work. The case.”

There’s a knock at the door. “It’s me,” Kim calls.

Jean turns to flip the lock and pulls the door open. Kim walks through, looking relaxed and mussed in the same way that Jean is.

“Good evening, lieutenant,” Kim says to Harry. “Or should I say good morning?”

“I didn’t know you even drank, ever,” Harry says.

Kim laughs. “Yeah, I drink.”

EMPATHY: He has a few drinks about once a month, and that’s it.

VOLITION: The ability to do that is called ‘self-control’.

“Detectives,” Kim says, “I was going to ask if you wanted to join me on the balcony while I have tonight’s cigarette. I’m a little paranoid about standing out on a balcony alone right now.”

“Sure,” Jean says. “Harry?”

Harry gets up, putting weight on his left leg experimentally. It’s less painful now, though more stiff, too. “Absolutely.” A cigarette sounds great, and refreshing.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Speed would also be refreshing.

“Bring your sandwich,” Jean says to Harry. “I’m not bumming you a cigarette until you finish that sandwich.”

Harry grabs the sandwich off of the couch and follows them out.

Martinaise looks pretty tonight. It’s still hazy out from the earlier rain; streetlights, neon signs, and the halogen headlights of passing MCs create beams of light that reflect off of still puddles and dance at the edges of Harry’s vision. He takes a deep lungful of the spring air and leans on the railing, then bites into the sandwich.

“I like this,” he says to Jean, pleased. “This is a good sandwich.”

“It’s your favorite kind of sandwich,” Jean says.

“Is it?” Harry says.

Jean looks aggrieved.

There’s a soft flick and then the rush of a tiny ignition as Kim lights his cigarette, followed by a crackling sound as he takes a drag. He turns to the bay and exhales, looking out over Martinaise. “Traffic’s moving through the harbor again,” he notes.

“Where do you think Evrart is, right now?” Harry says, following Kim’s gaze.

“Do you think he sleeps in that container?” Jean says.

Harry considers this. It’s hard for him to imagine Evrart sleeping at all.

“By the way, Harry, while you were unconscious, I called back into the 41st,” Jean says. “Trant successfully profiled Edgar, and they tracked him down in La Delta and got ahold of him on the phone by pretending to be a telemarketer.”

“He’s hiding out in his accountant’s office, as we expected,” Kim says.

“We’d like to tap that line, try to intercept any calls Edgar has with his brother, but we don’t have the resources or the manpower for that,” Jean says.

PERCEPTION: The tag on Jean’s shirt is sticking up, rubbing against his neck.

Harry reaches out and tucks the tag back under Jean’s collar, then rests his hand on Jean’s shoulder. Jean looks askance at him, but having his hand there feels good, so Harry doesn’t move it. With his other hand, he continues to eat his sandwich.

“Anyway,” Kim says, smoking and ignoring this odd behavior, “we know where he is, at least. And if he does turn himself in to us, we’ll know that Evrart has kept his word.”

“So now we wait,” Jean says.

“Now we wait,” Kim agrees.

SUGGESTION: You should kiss Jean on the neck. It’s okay that Kim is here — he’s cool.

Harry makes the executive decision to not do this, but files the thought away for later. He finishes his sandwich and crumples the wrapper in his hand, stuffing it in his pocket. “Someone give me a cigarette,” he says.

“You know I only ever have the one,” Kim says, looking amused.

“Kim,” Harry says, taking the pack of Guelphs that Jean is holding out to him and pulling a cigarette free from it, “you need to live a little.”

“I really don’t, detective.”

Harry lights his cigarette and inhales, filling his lungs with acrid herbal smell. “Jean, back me up.”

“I think you should be taking advice from Lieutenant Kitsuragi, not the other way around,” Jean says.

Kim smirks at Harry.

“Traitor,” Harry mutters.

/

When they part ways with Kim, he lingers by his door for a moment as if he wants to tell them something, but ultimately says “Goodnight,” and pulls it shut behind him.

Harry can hear clamor from downstairs at the Whirling — people talking, laughing, placing orders at the bar. The place is more crowded right now than it’s been at any other point since he first arrived here.

“We made them happy,” Harry says to Jean while he’s turning the key in the lock.

“Who?” Jean says, pulling the door open and holding it for Harry.

“The people,” Harry says, gesturing over the balcony to the cafeteria before heading inside.

“Yeah, I think we did,” Jean says, following him.

EMPATHY: Jean is not big on victory laps or post-game analysis. He’s already mentally moved on to the sizable task of actually arresting the Claires.

Their room — Klaasje’s room — is welcoming and warmly lit, which appeals to and amplifies the nicotine buzz in Harry’s brain. Jean’s warm body, moving around the room as he packs up the first aid kit, also appeals to this buzz. They came inside just in time; it’s started raining again.

From next door, Harry hears music start to play over a boombox. Not Speedfreaks FM, something softer. Harry can hear a piano and a saxophone.

ESPRIT DE CORPS: Kim knows what’s about to happen between you two and is playing music to drown out any noise that results from it.

Jean finishes straightening up and turns to Harry without looking at him. He tugs at the elbow of his rolled-up shirtsleeve and says, “We should probably get ready for bed.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: I smell weakness. He wants your body.

SAVOIR FAIRE: Kiss him on the neck like you wanted to before.

Harry approaches Jean, moving into his space. Jean’s eyes flick to his face, then settle on his mouth. He inhales, air swelling his chest.

EMPATHY: This man _adores_ you, inexplicably.

Harry reaches down and tugs Jean’s dress shirt free of his pants, then unhooks his belt. All of this he does in seconds, like it’s something he’s very used to doing to Jean, and then he slides his hands around the warm, toned flesh of Jean’s waist and presses them to the small of his back. At the same time, he leans in to kiss him.

Jean meets him halfway, pushing his hands into Harry’s hair and grabbing his skull as if to hold him steady. They kiss with sloppy eagerness, exchanging saliva, their teeth bumping each other’s lips. Harry breaks the kiss to rub his cheek against Jean’s goatee, wanting to feel the awful, satisfying scrape of facial hair against facial hair, then buries his face in Jean’s neck, kissing and sucking it.

Jean shudders and makes a soft moan in response, which electrifies Harry like he’s become a lightning rod for all of the static in the room.

Something takes Harry over — his past self, or his limbic system, or his penis. He drags his lips up Jean’s neck to his ear and breathes into it, “I wanna make you come.”

LOGIC: You don’t even know how to _do_ that.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Apply hand or mouth to genitals and work frantically until you produce an orgasm. Not very complicated.

Jean doesn’t answer. He’s too busy clinging to Harry, nuzzling him, taking shallow breaths. He reaches down to graze Harry’s crotch with his hand, and says, all haughty, “You’re already this hard, old man?”

“Can we go upstairs?” Harry says.

“Yes,” Jean murmurs.

Harry sticks his tongue in Jean’s ear, wanting to make him shudder again. He’s successful, but Jean adds “Fuck off” and swats him in the arm before taking his hand and leading him up the stairs.

In the Murder Bedroom, the Get-Sniped Bedroom, the Lely’s-Head-Exploding Bedroom, Harry turns to Jean at the top of the stairs and pulls his shirt off over his head, tugging and pawing at it like a savage, popping a few of the buttons off. Jean doesn’t seem to have any problem with this, though. Maybe he owns a lot of similar shirts. His eyes are large but half-lidded, and he’s staring at Harry with a desire so acute it looks painful.

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: Those three gin and tonics he had downstairs with Kim tore through the defenses he had put up against you. He’s spent days and days resisting his desire for you to throw him around like you’re a dog with a chew toy.

Harry rips his own shirt off, full of a virile, manly desire to let his chest hair breathe. Then he drops his pants, pushing Jean toward the bed. Jean falls back into it and kicks his trousers off, tossing them aside.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: Yes, you’re very virile and manly, but please don’t forget you’re recovering from a gunshot wound.

Jean seems to realize this at the same time, reaching out to put a hand to Harry’s bandaged thigh. “Be careful,” he says.

Harry leans down to kiss him on his reddened, beard-burned lips, then kneels onto the bed with him and pushes him back into the pillows. Jean is so pliant in his arms, it’s like his well-muscled body is a sack of ropes that Harry is playing with. Harry presses his lips to the hard curve of Jean’s bicep, then rolls his hips against him.

“Harry,” Jean murmurs, rising up onto his elbows, “seriously, be careful… lie down, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry agrees, because he’s already kind of exhausted. He lies down next to Jean, who rises onto his knees in their nest of bedding.

“I don’t want to explain to the lieutenant how you popped all your stitches at ten at night,” Jean says, smiling.

“We could tell him I was doing some evening calisthenics.”

“Very believable.”

Jean is also hard. Harry reaches out to grab his dick in his boxers, then hooks a finger in the waistband of them and tugs them down so he can take a look at it. “Nice dick,” he comments.

“Did you forget what it looked like?”

“Well, yeah. I forgot what _mine_ looked like.”

Jean laughs as he straddles Harry’s pelvis, kneeling on either side of him. He lies down across Harry, pressing the warmth of their bodies together, and starts to grind against him while caressing Harry’s dick.

Warm, electric pleasure suffuses through Harry, tingling in his earlobes and the roots of his hair. He noses at Jean’s ear again, nuzzling him. Jean presses a kiss to Harry’s chest, then nudges his nose into the space under Harry’s ear and inhales.

EMPATHY: Jean really likes how you smell. He finds it comforting. He’s scent-driven: bloodhound cop.

INLAND EMPIRE: You’re the same way, sometimes.

Harry closes his eyes, delirious about the steady, grinding pressure he’s getting on his aching dick after being blue balls-ed for thirteen straight hours. He moves his hand over Jean’s body, feeling the taut musculature of his back, caressing his hipbone, and then sliding under the elastic waistband of his boxers to squeeze Jean’s ass.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT: I was right, he _does_ have a nice ass.

Jean meets Harry’s mouth with his own again, sucking on Harry’s bottom lip while he grinds against him harder. He keeps stroking him, his hand moving faster as Harry reacts to this, arching up into him and moaning.

He comes before he even realizes he’s going to come, which makes sense, because he hasn’t done that since before his amnesia. As it's happening, Harry becomes terrified that he’s succumbing to a _second_ spasm of amnesia. A half-second later, he realizes that was just his brain whiting out from pleasure.

ENCYCLOPEDIA: That’s why they call it _la petite mort._ The little death.

In the moments after he comes, Harry feels like Jean, the orgasm-giver, is the most precious and dear thing in the world to him. He clutches at him, caging Jean tight in his arms, pressing their warm bodies together so hard that his nipples start going numb. The world is a sea of blissful white noise.

“Oh my God,” Harry pants once his head has cleared enough for him to speak, “I love you. Wait, shit, I didn’t mean to say that. Don’t take that literally. I love you, though. Thank you. Oh, man.”

Jean starts laughing. “Have you not jerked off since your brain exploded?”

“No, I haven’t… I forgot that’s what it felt like…”

Jean nuzzles Harry’s neck, kissing him on the jaw before he resumes grinding against him. Harry becomes aware of a seeping wetness, and worries he tore another stitch, but then he remembers about semen.

Harry reaches down to help Jean, wrapping a hand around his dick and starting to stroke in what seems to be a deeply familiar motion. Jean lets out a pleased sigh and reaches up to cup Harry’s cheek in his hand, stroking his thumb over his beard.

Touching Jean feels so good, and so easy. No wonder he’s been trying to do it ever since he got back. Harry is perfectly content to lie there, kissing Jean on the crown of his head and sniffing his hair, while one of his hands jerks him off and the other runs its index finger up and down Jean’s spine, traveling from the crack of his ass back up to his shoulder blades and back down again.

When Jean comes, he does so with a soft cry that tails off into a happy groan. His body weight settles over Harry, pinning him to the bed, sharing his air. Harry’s eyes become very heavy.

“You wanna go to sleep?” he murmurs.

“Yeah,” Jean says, his voice husky. He tugs his boxers off from where they had settled around his knees, uses them to haphazardly wipe the two of them off, then tosses them onto the floor and snuggles into the crook of Harry’s arm.

Harry pulls the blanket over them both, then lolls his head over to the side so his nose is pressed to Jean’s scalp. “What time is it?” he says, and grabs Jean’s limp arm, pulling his wrist to his face so he can read his watch. “Only ten thirty? What the fuck?”

“Yeah, that took about fifteen minutes,” Jean says in a sleepy drawl. “How long did you think it’d been?”

“Five hours at a minimum.”

Jean starts laughing. “No.”

“I traveled into space, mentally,” Harry says. “I traversed the pale and returned.”

“Welcome back to orgasms, Harry. They’re fun.”

ELECTROCHEMISTRY: An audacious understatement.

Harry drops Jean’s arm, and Jean drapes it across his chest, idly caressing Harry’s shoulder with his thumb. Harry closes his eyes as black waves of exhaustion surge upward to swallow him.

He kisses Jean on the head one more time, and that’s the last thing he remembers doing before falling asleep.


End file.
